CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 349 km round trip from Tashkent - roughly 7 h 29 in the saddle. The stops in between: Big Solar Furnace, The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve and back through Big Solar Furnace. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and the big, green, slightly surprising gateway to the Silk Road. It is a city of two million people with wide avenues, shady plane trees, fountains and a good deal of Soviet architecture, because a catastrophic earthquake in 1966 flattened much of the old town and the whole republic helped to rebuild it. What survived is mostly in the old quarter, around the Chorsu bazaar, with its blue-domed hall, spice stalls and mountains of bread, nuts and dried fruit.
Read the complete Tashkent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tashkent is where the day begins. Next is Big Solar Furnace.
In the foothills of the Tian Shan, about an hour north-east of Tashkent, there is a building that looks as if it belongs in a science fiction film: a huge curved mirror, made of thousands of smaller mirrors, facing a field of tracking mirrors that follow the sun and focus its light onto a single point. This is the Big Solar Furnace near Parkent, built in the Soviet era in the 1980s, and still used for research into materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Big Solar Furnace comes up 42 km in. Next is The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve.
East of Tashkent, the land rises steeply into the western ranges of the Tian Shan, and the Chatkal range forms the border with Kyrgyzstan. The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve, established in the Soviet era, protects a stretch of these mountains, with juniper forests, walnut and wild fruit trees, alpine meadows and rocky peaks.
Read the complete The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
83 km in you reach The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve. Next is back through Big Solar Furnace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Big Solar Furnace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Big Solar Furnace, late in the day. Next is Tashkent.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tashkent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tashkent. That is the ride.
Tashkent → Big Solar Furnace is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Big Solar Furnace → The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Chatkal State Biosphere Nature Reserve → back through Big Solar Furnace is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Big Solar Furnace → Tashkent is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.